


Thunderstorm

by AutumnPen



Category: Bastion
Genre: Fluff, Multi, OT3, Storms, Worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 19:45:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3782104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutumnPen/pseuds/AutumnPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based on the prompt - “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you wanna stop and feel the rain?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thunderstorm

There are deep lines which rumple Rucks’s brow when he’s thinking too hard or when he encounters anything he’s not particularly happy about. The lines are there now - as he, Kid, and Zia all stand on the lower deck of the Bastion, watching as the dark, rumbling clouds that dominate the horizon grow ever closer. Beneath the clouds is a sheet of grey, laced, on occasion, with brief flashes of white.

Rucks lets out his own displeased rumble (no match for the thunder sounding in the distance) as he surveys the storm, stretched so wide and the clouds reaching so high that he deems it inevitable that they enter it. “You kids better go topside,” he says.

Kid turns to look at him as he speaks. Zia, however, stands with her eyes fixed on the clouds, her dark hair catching the wind and whipping out behind her, ribbon-like.

“You sure?” Kid asks, meaning - _Are you sure you want to be down here alone? Will you be okay steering through this?_ They have all pretty much learned, by now, how to read into the words he doesn’t say. No one would say Kid had a way with words, but they all know how to tell when he’s upset, or happy, or concerned, without him having spell it out for them.

Now, he’s concerned, and it makes Rucks chuckle. He pats the central pillar that connects the Bastion’s lower deck with it’s topside. If there’s anything Rucks has continued to feel sure of since - well, since this all started - it’s the Bastion, and how well he knows it. The Bastion will hold through the storm, and he’ll be fine down here, guiding it. He says as much to the Kid - “I’ll be fine. I’ll take the ol’ girl” -that’s what he’s taken to calling the Bastion, lately - “a bit lower beyond the cloudline, where it won’t be as rough. You go on up, now. Help Zulf ‘round up the critters and hunker down inside.”

Kid nods, satisfied, and turns to go. Zia stays where she is, though, hands clutched against the front of her tunic for lack of anything else to do. The air is growing chill, and she can feel goosebumps raise all up her arms when a particularly loud roll of thunder reaches their ears.

Kid puts a hand on her shoulder, though, and she turns to look at him. Their eyes lock, and he asks silent questions, which she answers by smiling and taking his hand before they climb up to the top of the Bastion together.

Just as they are emerging up top, they can see Zulf stepping out of this distillery, head turned towards the clouds as he pulls down the sleeves he’s had rolled up to his elbows while working in the kitchen - cleaning, not cooking.

“Rucks wants us to head inside - get ready for the storm,” Zia calls as they cross the soft, green grass towards Zulf.

Zulf hums his acknowledgement, then says, simply, “Wise.”

They gather what needs to be brought inside, what won’t weather the rain well. They roll up the tents and bring in the laundry that had been left hanging to dry out on a line. The squirt and pecker, too, are ushered inside while the anklegator burrows more deeply into the hunk of earth that makes up the center of the Bastion. They finish just as they pass under the rain - like pushing through a curtain - and are unable to avoid getting a little wet as they run inside.

“Well,” Zulf says, shaking his wet hands at the floor before shrugging out of his over-shirt, leaving just the white-button up he wears beneath, which remains fairly dry. “I suppose I should–” Here, he is interrupted by the Kid shaking his damp hair out like an animal - _too close_ to him. He shoots Kid a stern, disapproving look when Kid stops, and receives in return a sheepish smile that he hates to admit he finds charming. “I _suppose_ ,” he begins again, “I should start on our dinner. Would you mind starting a fire in the-”  
  
Kid’s not listening anymore. He’s looking around the room with a confused look on his face.

“What is it?” Zulf asks, looking around himself, and only just now noticing what’s missing.

“Where’s Zia?” Kid voices for the both of them.

Their pecker, which and been resting somewhere up in the rafters, squawks as if it understands their conversation and means to participate. It swoops down then, lands on the windowsill before pecking at the glass with its beak, and perhaps just wants to be let out.

When Zulf and Kid approach, however, to look out the window, it is then they find Zia. She’s outside still, in the middle of the Bastion in what has quickly become a torrential downpour. Her face is tipped back, just a little, and her hands turned palm-up. Zulf, for one, feels his heart drop into the bottom of his stomach before he rushes for the door, yanking it open and calling for Zia to come inside. What was she _thinking_? His voice, however, is lost in the rain. Kid’s pushing past him, then, running out into the storm grabbing Zia by the arm, tugging her before they both come running back inside. Zulf hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until the door slams shut behind them and they both sink, breathless and drenched, to the floor.

Zia’s smiling wide and she starts laughing to herself, quietly at first, the louder. She clutches Kid’s arm and tilts her head back against the door, and laughs until she can’t anymore. Before long the Kid cracks his grin and begins laughing with her.

Zulf is only able to stare. Zia’s long hair is plastered to her forehead and her cheeks, and her lashes are clumped together, and Kid begins to shake himself dry again, and the puddle they’re leaving on the floor is spreading to where Zulf stands and _he just doesn’t understand what could be so funny_.

“What were you doing?!” He demands at last, louder than was necessary with no one else in the room and them all so near to one another. “Why didn’t you come inside? Why were you just _standing there_?”

Zia and Kid stop laughing and smiling when Zulf yells, both looking up at him a little wide-eyed. They look at each other, then Zia looks up as Zulf, and answers.

“I was just… I wanted to feel the rain.” She says, and smiles sheepishly. It looks, to Zulf’s mind, infuriatingly like Kid’s smile, and loses none of it’s charm on Zia’s mouth. But that’s not what matters now.

Zulf is flabbergasted. What’s more, he’s a little bit angry. “Feel the rain? We’re in the middle of a _thunderstorm_ and you want to stop and _feel the rain_? Zia, that was dangerous! You could have been hurt! You could have been struck by lightening, or, or-”

“I’m sorry,” Zia interrupts, wincing a little. She is not, in fact, sorry for standing in the rain. She does not know how to explain to them that she just had to. Maybe later, she will tell them about how she loves rainstorms - the sound of raindrops on the roof, and the way light played on rain on her window, and the grumbling clouds, and the brief and illuminating flashes of lightening. Thunderstorms could be scary, but they were also powerful, exciting - and wild and free, like she hadn’t been able to be for such a long time. And cleansing. Her father had never let her linger in the rain, for fear she might catch cold. She doesn’t know how to tell them that she’d wanted to do something a little wild, a little dangerous - even if it was just standing out in the rain for a little while - to remind herself that she was free now, and really feel it, and cleanse the lingering fear and doubt and just _past_ that still clung to her sometimes.

She is, however, sorry that it has upset Zulf. He worries so much, and can honestly be a little stifling, sometimes. But he’s clutching his hands in the hem of his shirt, and she reminds herself that he worries because he cares, and because he has lost so much that he cares about, like they all have. He doesn’t want to lose anymore and it would be heartless of Zia if she forgot, in her fervor to prove to herself something that didn’t need proving, to watch out for those she cares for by watching out for what they care for - her. They all had to take extra care of themselves - they were all they had, now.

“You’re right,” she tells Zulf. “I’m sorry.”

She really does look quite contrite, and Zulf draws in a breath to calm himself. Everything is fine. Nothing bad had actually happened. “Alright,” he says.

As Kid and Zia finally pull themselves off of the floor, Zulf watches more water pool on the floor. Zia shivers. “You both have to get out of those clothes.” He flushes when Kid shoots him a sly smile and Zia bites her lip around a smile of her own, and giggles. “You’ll catch a cold!” He insists, and stalks off to find towels and blankets, ignoring the soft laughter behind him.

They eventually manage both to dress down into dry things and get a small dinner in their bellies. Kid has opted to stay in his boxers, having nothing else in to wear that they can get to, trapped by the rain in the distillery. After kindling a fire in the fireplace, he stood by the fire in the shorts, drying them enough to wear comfortably. Zia’s changed into a spare shirt which actually belongs to Kid, and has been recently mended by Zulf (Zia is a little jealous of his skills with thread and needle). It is long on her, falling more than halfway down her thighs, and loose - but it is comfortable.

Kid and Zia sit near the fire, wrapped up in the same blanket, leaning on cushions and warming each other up. They meant to help Zulf clean up after dinner, since it didn’t seem fair that he should cook _and_ clean up, but he had insisted - wanting to make sure they were kept warm and dry, and well out of any sickness’s reach. When he comes back into the main room, having set aside some of their meal for Rucks, he makes to sit on a cushion opposite of the other two.

“Zulf,” Zia calls, and Kid is already opening his arms and the blanket both in invitation. Zulf flushes again. “Come help us get warm,” Zia says.

Zulf does not protest, telling himself that it will help them, besides - one more body and more shared heat to keep illness at bay. Zia is leaning back against Kid’s broad chest, and Zulf settles in beside her, leaning back against him as well. Zia gathers him close and he lets her, resting his head on her shoulder. She leaves a kiss on his hairline.

“Zulf,” she calls again, and he turns to look up at her. “I really am sorry for upsetting you.”

He settles down again, making himself comfortable. “It’s alright. Just do try not to worry me so much in the future.”  
  
Zia smiles, and looks up at Kid, who is smiling at the both of them. “Yeah, I promise.”


End file.
